Multi-Access Box Hall of Fame

Hall of Fame

Opening the multi-access box is proving to be a challenging task for wild hyenas. The MAB tests a hyena’s ability to innovate, i.e. learn something new. So far only a few hyenas have shown that they have what it takes. First for the hall of fame, here are my champion MAB solvers.

REMI

REMI

Remington is a mid-ranking subadult male hyena in North clan. He’s part of the “guns” lineage. While the three other hyenas hanging out at this session all fell asleep, Remi persisted and opened the box using the door knob side. You can see he figures out how to bite the knob to pull open the door opposite the camera.

SHTR

SHTR

Next up, “Shoot Her” is a very low ranking subadult male in North clan. I put out the box for some young, newly graduated cubs that were highly enthusiastic about the box. However, after playing with the box for an hour none of them had opened it. Shooter decided he would check it out and opened it within minutes using the door knob side, despite having never seen the box before!

SOUP

SOUP

Soup is a high ranking subadult female in North clan. Are you noticing a trend here? Subadults are rocking the box. Soup is one of only two hyenas to open the box using the “push” solution. Hyenas really like to bite and pull on things and to open the push flap a hyena has to push it inwards. Here, Soup quickly pushed open the push flap using her paws; she opened the box in record-setting time! In addition, Soup beat out Remington, who had already opened the box!

BANG with a mouthful of milk powder.

BANG

Bang is one of only two hyenas to open the box twice! He’s a subadult male in South clan. He’s opened it once with the door knob side and once with the drawer.

LADY

Lady is a subadult male from North clan. At the time he opened the box however he was deep inside of South Clan’s territory! It looks like he might be immigrating to South because we saw him hanging out at South Den with Toledo (TLDO), one of South’s highest ranking immigrant males. Lady was super enthusiastic about the box and spent a lot of time biting and pawing at it before he got the push flap to open. Toledo wasn’t so sure about the box, he watched warily from a distance during Lady’s trial. (I posted about LADY a month ago here.).

RANG is a tough young hyena.

RANG is easy to identify by her ear damage.

RANG

Rangsang is a distinctive looking hyena, she’s a young adult female in South clan and she just recently had her very first cub! However, a few months before I arrived in Serena she was involved in a nasty clan war and got some very distinctive ear damage! She’s a cognition trial fiend and has already completed all of inhibitory control cylinder trials and now she’s conquering the box!

RANG's first cub, JEMI.

RANG opens the box. 

Tervuren is still a little fluffer! 

TERV

Tervuren is the youngest hyena to ever open the box! He is still a little fluffy cub at South's communal den, yet he beat out all the older subadults and adults that were also investigating the box. I put out the box almost 100m from the den hoping to see if RANG or BANG could open it again. Also present was the infamous HONR, who was so enthusiastic about his inhibitory control cylinder trials that he wouldn’t let the RAs have the cylinder back! However, none of these hyenas opened the box today… nope… little Terv comes loping up and opens the door knob!

Yola is difficult to ID by his spots. 

YOLA

Yola is the only hyena in Talek to open the box so far and he’s also opened it twice. He opened the box first using the sliding door, and then again using the door knob side. Yola is a fluffy young subadult in KCM clan. He’s mostly ID-able by the fact that he’s too fluffy to have spots.

Coming up soon: Hall of Shame

Which hyenas have tried, but failed, to open the multi-access box?